Dear Editor
The DA has requested an update from the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on its investigation into the persistent crisis surrounding the disbursement of social grants by the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA).
Last year, the DA lodged a formal complaint with the Commission following a series of payment failures which left vulnerable social grant recipients in distress.
The latest payment failure, which has left 150 000 beneficiaries without their January payments, is not only an indictment against SASSA and Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu but should also inspire the SAHRC to conclude its investigation as a matter of urgency.
These perpetual payment failures erode South Africa’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens’ constitutional rights to human dignity, life, healthcare, food, water, and social security, as well as infringing on the rights of children as they are disproportionately affected and will suffer the most long-term consequences.
The DA’s comprehensive social development policy has a number of recommendations to better support vulnerable citizens, including:
- Safeguarding social grants from corruption and increasing child support grants to match the official food poverty line;
- Supporting the elderly by promoting financial literacy, the auto-enrolment with an opt out options in workplace pension schemes to encourage saving for retirement as this lays the foundation for their financial resilience in their retirement, and regulating old-age homes to protect against abuse;
- Expanding the list of VAT-exempt food items to ensure essential items remain affordable for the most vulnerable; and
- Empowering communities to independently cultivate, market and sell their produce through food gardens supported by food hubs in order to foster self-reliance while simultaneously addressing immediate hunger and nutrition concerns.
The DA will continue to do everything in our power to assist the country’s poor and vulnerable, including calling SASSA and the Minister to Parliament to explain their latest failure and why their previous measures to safeguard against glitches failed.
Regards
Bridget Masango MP
DA Shadow Minister of Social Development
Referee
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
dahlia
Fun South African Fact: For an unforgettable bucket-list activity, search for the famous Big 5 (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo) on safari in one of South Africa’s national parks or private game reserves. A South African safari is an experience like no other!